Morning After
by An Artists Account
Summary: "You love me, you know you do." His voice was rough, demanding, but she's already fading away, like the strange, strange blue smoke. "I can't." The moment fades, colours dripping from violent to murky, like thrown over a painted world. The drip-drip of stale beer and even staler lies. They're all so lost. Told through the eyes of Rose and Lily. Rating may change
1. Prologue

_prologue_

There's something about being in love with someone you hate.

Something so entirely painful and humiliating, because you know, however much you try, that it'll never work out. But you fight it anyway because when you're together, in those brief moments when you're in bed together and he doesn't leave straight away, instead kissing your throat in a motion that is so gentle you feel like crying. Crying is a release. Because you're so lost underneath all those expectations from everybody, and his bed and his hard, biting embrace is the only place where it all goes away.

You know you're a fool, everyone says so, but oh, the feeling of oblivion - it feels so good. Good enough to give up everything to this strange, strange boy with his possessive, obsessive power over you.

You love him. But you know he'll break you; break you and burn you and that'll be left is a heap of ashes in the shape of a flower on the floor, already lost to the wind. All that is left of your bitter, broken heart. But oh darling, you know how the story ends. So why do you find yourself in the dark of bed, your head so clouded by the dreams only the bottom of a bottle can bring, that you barely even feel the teeth against your shoulder and the burning tongue on your bare skin.

Oh you fool, you beautiful, twisted fool.

You love him.

You hate him.

You hate yourself.


	2. Chapter 1

_Chapter one_

_Rose_

The music was loud enough to drown out the pounding in Rose's ears as she danced with Scorpius, her beer slopping over the edges of the can as she flung an arm over his broad shoulders. His arm was around her waist and, really, it was the only reason she was still upright. Rose flung her head back and laughed, deep and loud, fuelled by alcohol, and drained her beer, letting the sweaty can slide from between her fingers. A dribble of warm liquid splashed against her foot but she barely noticed it.

"I need another drink," She yelled, swaying into Scorpius' chest. He nodded, and pushed his white blond hair out of his eyes, his forehead glistening with sweat. They fought their way through the crowd to the table in the corner stacked with bottles and cans. Someone bumped Rose and she teetered before Scorpius set her back on her feet. Vodka, that was what she needed. Strong and burning, drowning out her shitty day with sweet oblivion, thick, like the strange blue smoke billowing like silk from underneath a closed door.

It was strange how alive Rose felt when she was killing herself. Drowning in the bottle and laughing so much she couldn't breathe. When she was with Scorpius, finding any excuse to touch him, pull his head down for a kiss, the briefest clash of tongues before away, away, and dancing, not even recognising the faces she pulled close.

There was a kind of peace to knowing she wouldn't remember this night. Any embarrassment would fade, along with the strange marks on her neck and chest and shoulders that eluded even the most persistent scrubbings of her flannel. It was worth it, for these brief moments with Scorpius, hard and fast when they fell against each other, tearing at clothes and hair, kicking the door of their hideaway closed behind them. The hasty, hurried fumbling movements on the bed, or sofa, or against the wall, fast, always fast, and always fighting. They'd collapse afterwards, exhaustion and alcohol making an escape impossible, at least for now.

By morning Scorpius would always be alone, the space beside him cold and empty. They never spoke about these moments, but sometimes he would hold the pillow where her head had rested and pull it close to his face, and smell her perfume all around him and wish.

He never told anyone what he wished for.

...

_Lily_

Lily let the warm water pour over her face, streaking black across her cheeks and lips as yesterday's makeup was washed away down the drain. The smell of stale beer dripped from her hair and with it, the humiliation, until the only thing remaining was resignation and the dark ring of fingertip bruises around her breast that she wouldn't let herself look at.

She sometimes wondered why she let him, why he only had to touch her, kiss her, for every uncertainty, every piece of self-loathing and self-doubt to fade away. He was her drug, and she - an addict.

The most humiliating part of all though, was once the marks faded - the marks of her shame - she'd go back to him.

In the end, she always went back to him.


	3. Chapter 2

_chapter two_

_Rose_

Rose worked in a bookshop. It was neither the most glamorous nor the most well paid job she could have had. Indeed, as her mother had told her many, many times, she could get her daughter a job at the Ministry at the drop of a hat, if only Rose was prepared to put in a little bit of effort. But Rose hadn't wanted to work at the Ministry of Magic. Nor had she wanted to follow her aunt into quidditch as her father had not so subtly hoped.

In fact, Rose hadn't wanted to do anything after leaving Hogwarts two years ago. Well, that wasn't quite true - but a career in mess ups and alcohol fuelled sex could hardly pay the bills and what she'd wanted to do, what she'd always wanted to do, had been shot down by her mother years ago. So she worked in a bookshop.

Rose knew she was a failure. She saw it every time her mother asked pointedly about jobs and mortgages and settling down; every time her father opened his paper and saw her splayed across the front cover with unoriginal titles branded across her drunken face. Hugo was the good child, the one who hadn't ruined their pristine image and sometimes, often in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep, she missed him. Missed Hugo, even though he annoyed her with his freckly face and long nose and clumsy hands. Hugo wasn't judgemental, not like she was. She envied him sometimes too, for his boring, oh-so-safe life at Hogwarts when she was lost in the big, bad world.

She missed Hogwarts. It was like a powerful ache, right down in her core, how much she missed the comfort those walls had provided...

But those were maudlin thoughts. Rose pushed them aside as she walked briskly down Diagon Alley and then turned into the doorway of 18A, Obscurus Books, pulling a heavy, bronze key as she did so. She was early, but then she nearly always was. It was somewhere to go after all, when she couldn't face the walk home after spending the night at Scorpius' and early morning was already fast approaching.

Obscurus Books was immaculately organised inside, a contrast to the somewhat old-fashioned and untidy approach from the street. This was Rose's doing, not that Professor Obscurus minded as he was usually away, entrusting his shop to Rose and her manager. At this time though, it was usually just Rose.

...

Lily

"Lils, Lily!"

"What?" Lily turned her head and looked at her friend, smoothing out the wrinkles of her frown.

"Are you finished?" Karla Cauldwell had already pushed her barely touched plate away and was standing up, a slight bite of annoyance in her voice. Jennifer was beside her. Lily looked to Rita, who was sat beside Lily and was still eating.

"Rita's not finished yet."

"So? She eats too much anyway."

It was true that Rita was more than a little on the plump side, especially next to Lily who had inherited her father's stick-like body, and Karla who chose not to eat to maintain her figure. Even Jennifer who, in addition to her more than ample chest and hips, was tall, and took pills to keep her weight under control. Rita though, stubbornly refused. She liked the way she was made, small and petite with thick dark hair.

Karla often said snidely that they only let Rita hang around with them was because she was always happy to do work for them and there had been unpleasant graffiti more than once in the girl's bathroom, suggesting all sorts of things. Personally, Lily felt sorry for Rita, who was kind and clever, and didn't seem to care what anyone thought about her. Lily envied her that.

Lily neither liked, nor disliked Rita. It was the way she felt about most people actually, a sort of static indifference. Maybe she was just too tired to care anymore, or maybe she never had been able to, and that caring had just been a lie, like every other lie she told herself. Still, she felt sorry for big, fat Rita and the spiteful words that always came when she tagged along with them. If she'd been braver, or smarter, she might have been able to stop it. But she couldn't even save herself so what was the point? They would exist in this stasis, isolated from the outside world, and then she'd be free.

Whatever that meant.

"Rita?"

"It's okay Lily, I'm finished now anyway."

Rita took a final sip of Pumpkin juice then pushed aside her plate and stood, ignoring Karla's less than subtle sigh.

The potions classroom was full of shimmering smoke when they arrived, sliding into seats at the very back. Lily tipped her head back and closed her eyes, her feet up on the empty stool from seat next to her.

"Hey Lily, um, how are you?"

Lily opened one eye and then shut it when she saw Frank, an overly friendly Hufflepuff stood before her. After a pause she answered.

"I'm fine thanks."

"What you been up to?"

"Not much."

"That's cool. So, um, I was actually wondering if-"

He was cut off by a high mocking laugh and Lily's eyes shot open as Karla sneered around at him.

"Do you love her? Do you love Lily?" She crooned and there was an answering snort of laughter from the door as a group of three boys walked in.

Lily froze.

"Piss off Long_bottom _and stay away from my girl." The voice of Nathan Baker wasn't loud. Nor was it demanding or even aggressive, but Lily flinched all the same. There was something hard in his voice, hard as his hand around her wrist.

"I was actually only going to ask if that seat was spare," said Frank, with a certain quiet dignity.

"Well it's not, so I suggest you take your fat arse over to the corner where I don't have to look at you."

Lily knew that this was the moment for her to say something, to disagree with Nathan's assumption and, for once, stand up for someone, even if it was only herself. But she didn't. For a plethora of reasons. Nathan had swung down onto the seat next to her, knocking her feet aside, his hand loosening on her wrist. There were lots of reasons she didn't say anything but the main one, the most shameful one of all, was that his thumb was stroking the inside of her wrist and it was soft and gentle and oh...

And then he was kissing her, hard and fast against her mouth. A possessive gesture, one to prove his point. His two friends were whistling as his hand wound around her waist onto her bottom and his tongue fought its way into his mouth.

For Lily though, it was like she was retreating, watching the scene from a distance, watching somebody else's body in Nathan's lap. But what she saw most was Frank's face and the half smile, half sadness that etched upon it. That she's failed this chance too, just like she had with all the others.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter three

Rose

Rose was bumping her way down the stairs, occasionally grabbing at the handrail to help herself traverse the more difficult areas, when she saw Jonathon and immediately thought she was going to puke.

He recognised her, she knew that from the slight flicker in his eyes, but then he was passing by, not even saying a word. Not that Rose would have listened, even if he had. What was she to Jonathon anymore? He already taken everything she had; her pride, her dignity. Her anonymous life. He was the one who had created the monster she had become.

Rose found Scorpius in the living room, sat on a sofa with two girls sprawled over him and a mostly empty bottle of some clear liquid in his lap. It was clear that this was not the moment to interrupt. So she found a shot glass and a bottle of firewhiskey and went and plonked herself on the window seat in a deserted bedroom, staring out into the dark street. The party behind her was loud, and insistent booming of the music and the bubbles of chatter, so she drew the curtain across behind her, shutting it all out.

Scorpius found her there, almost an hour later, still staring out into the night. He pulled the sweaty bottle from her grip and sat down next to her. It was always this way, she so drunk that the memories faded away like the dripping of watercolours, becoming murkier and murkier, all colour fading.

In was in these moments when being best friends never seemed enough, and so Rose reached out for him, drawing his head down until their lips met

...

Lily

They had been friends once, she and Frank. Back when she's been freckly and so small people used to stare unseeingly over her head; when he's been chubby, with a cheerful face and large brown eyes and while Lily and Hugo had been close, they'd been closer. But that had been before Nathan.

Lily sometimes wondered how she'd come to be this person she barely recognised anymore. A few bad decisions, a night, her first night, filled with alcohol and lust, and now...

"Budge up." Nathan squeezed into the space next to Lily on the bench and began to load his plate with casserole, then wrapped an arm around her waist. Lily laid her head on his shoulder as he began to eat with one hand.

"Are we still on for tonight?" Lily asked, absently dusting crumbs from the table and dumping them on her plate. She paused, waiting for his answer.

"Of course," Nathan looked down at her with his strange half smile. "Everyone knows you'd fail History of Magic without me."

It was true, Lily would fail her class without him because Nathan was clever, very clever, when it came to people. It was a game they played - she, asking some obscure question and, somehow, him knowing the answer. She wasn't that clever, but he was and he used that genius to help her.

It was moments like these that Lily loved; his touch, so gentle, and his laugh, so low, not really more than a rumble in his chest.

That evening, hidden away in some forgotten corner of the castle, they sat together, and she loved him so much in those moments that it was almost a physical ache somewhere deep in her chest. Their conversation and their looks and their movements, all of it, to Lily didn't want anything else. All that she loved, all that she cared about, was there, rocking back on his chair, his next laugh about to escape.

"When were the Unforgivable Curses first considered unforgivable?" She asked, and he half turned towards her, rolling his eyes.

"Too easy."

"When was it?"

"Come on, give me a challenge Flower."

"You don't know, do you!" Lily poked him in the side and he grabbed her hand, pulling her in towards him. "Admit it!"

"1717," he mumbled into her neck.

"No," Lily tried to push him away, but he only pulled her closer, sliding his hands up her stomach, under the white of her shirt. "Not now, I've got homework..."

He pulled away, eyes slightly narrowed. "You always say that."

"Oh don't be such a baby," Lily teased, "You're just a big-"

It was the sound always, that Lily remembered afterwards. The gunshot crack as the heel of his hand, or his open palm met her skin. The searing, burning pain always faded, but the sound reverberated around her head, loud, dominating her thoughts. The floor was hard and cold beneath her palms and knees, and her ears was ringing, loud, insistent; impossible to ignore.

"Why do you have to say that?" he asked and his voice was so low, so beautiful, haunting her dreams and nightmares. "Why do you have to say that?"

But Lily had learned her lesson and kept her mouth closed, closed so no more treacherous, rebellious words could slip out on a kamikaze mission that could only end one way.

"You still love me don't you? You won't stop loving me ever?" And again Lily was seeing life from the end of a tunnel, herself kneeling on the ground and him, leaning over her, and she found herself going back, all the way to the beginning.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter four

Rose

Scorpius absently let a loose curl fall from between his fingers as he stared at the curve of Rose's shoulder, lying in the bed next to him. It was rare for her to still be asleep this late, with the first glimmers of sunlight escaping round the curtains. He treasured these moments, when they were this close.

Rose and Scorpius's friendship had an unoriginal beginning. She had entered Hogwarts with something to prove and somehow he had been swept along in her rebellious games. She was reckless, the reckless of Gryffindors. He was sly, and calculating, and always knew how to get his way. Their friendship was quickly cemented and, from that moment, they were rarely seen, one without the other. For Scorpius though, it had never been enough. Waiting for the opportune moment seemed to grow harder and harder as the years passed. And then came Jonathon and everything changed.

Humiliation is always hard to bear, especially when it strikes at your one weakness, the one thing with the power to hurt you most.

He glanced at his watch, then back down at Rose who shifted slightly in her sleep closer to him. There was only one day each year when Rose let him hold in this way, as tenderly as lovers, only one day where she let him see the hurt inside her. Scorpius loathed and longed for this day in equal measure; wishing it could last and despising himself for this desire, and then, as he always did, he found himself remembering.

...

The snickering was getting hard to ignore as Rose and Scorpius walked across the Entrance Hall for breakfast, late one Sunday morning. It had been Meagan Thomas's seventeenth the night before and most of the school had congregated in the Room of Requirement for her party, Rose and Scorpius included. Drink had flowed and Rose knew that she was going to regret what she'd done with Jonathon in a small anti-chamber, away from the main party, the next morning, but that was the thing about this night. Logic seemed misshapen while it was happening, and future regrets were all too easy to push aside.

For all Rose's reputation as a partier, and all the rumours about her that generally circulated the student body, last night had been a first in many different ways. Her first time with Jonathon, who was two years older than her and had seemed glued to her side all night. Her first time with the strange clear drink he forced into her mouth. She wasn't proud of what she and Jonathon had shared, but they'd straighten things out, and everything would be resolved. He wouldn't throw her inexperienced lack of judgement in her face.

When they entered the Great Hall, whispers erupted and more than one wolf-whistle. Rose glanced around, confused, and saw Professor Vector hurrying towards her, a worried look on her face.

"What's going on?"

Scorpius wished he had an answer, but then a loud, raucous voice was yelling and Rose could feel the blood pounding in her ears as high, mocking laughter filled the hall.

Professor Vector swept the pair from the Great Hall, but not before Rose had one last look at the laughing face of Jonathon Brickers, and understood everything.

...

"I'm sorry Miss Weasley."

Rose was too numb to cry as she stared down at the newspapers spread across Professor Vector's desk. Scorpius reached for her hand but she shook him off and he recoiled.

"I've written to your parents of course, but-"

Here Rose let out a hysterical laugh. "You've written to them? Oh well, that's alright then. It's not like they'll have read about me in every _fucking_ newspaper and those photos, oh Merlin, those photos..." She buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking.

"I know this looks bad Miss Weasley, but we can fix this. Ask the papers to print a retraction and-"

"A retraction?" She spat out incredulously. "Nobody's going to believe that. They all think I'm some- some fetish whore." Her voice broke and she clutched at her hair. "Oh Merlin, Mum's campaign, and Dad? He's gonna die of shame."

Extracts from the stories in front of them where leaping out at Scorpius.

_'Good girl, Rose Weasley, turned wild - a drunken night of sex and drugs.'_

_'"She was an animal," says our anonymous informant, "Wanted to try everything! Couldn't keep her off me."'_

_'Campaign for Mistress of Magic Ruined with Drug-Fuelled Rave.'_

Scorpius stood. "You do realise none of this is true, don't you Professor? This is Jonathon Brickers wanting his fifteen minutes of fame_."_

"I quite understand that Mr Malfoy, and the school will be taking this matter very seriously. However, " Professor Vector looked down at Rose with pity, "It may be better for Miss Weasley to have some time at home, until this story dies down."

"No." At first, Scorpius wasn't sure Rose had spoken, but then she squared her shoulders and spoke again. "No. I will be frightened away by this. Jonathon may think he's won, but I will not give him the satisfaction of breaking me."

...

For all her bravado though, Scorpius knew how much it hurt her to hear the whispers following her about the school, and to see the graffiti that marred the bathroom walls. She became colder, bitter, and strangely, this made her more popular than ever. To Scorpius, she became the ice queen he would later come to associate with her. The girl who trusted no-one with her heart.

Even when the newspapers lost interest in the story, and Jonathon was quietly removed from Hogwarts, even when her mother's campaign team launched their counter-argument, and the Brickers family faced charges for allegations of libel and slander; even then, she never thawed.

...

Lily

It had been a party of course. A Christmas Party, held at Nathan's home back in Fifth Year. It had promised to be the event of the season and, for Lily, she'd been more excited than she could have imagined. Nathan was, despite being in the same house as her, something of an enigma, always surrounded by crowds of friends, whereas Lily was always with Frank, or Hugo; preferring their company to the insipid chatter of the girls in her dorm. She thought having true friends was the only thing that mattered then.

How naive she was.

When they'd arrived, Frank, though not invited, had agreed after much grovelling to accompany her, Nathan only had eyes for Lily. He took her hand and dragged her through room after room, plying her with drinks, Frank soon lost in the crowds behind them. It was at that party that Lily took her first mouthful of firewhiskey, hot and burning her throat, the first time she felt the sweet oblivion only alcohol can bring. The first time Nathan kissed her, his hands deep in her hair, his tongue sliding into her mouth.

It was the first time Lily fell in love. There was just something about Nathan, something compelling that made the swoony, dizzy feeling in her head increase ten-fold; and when he lead her outside, to the little shed by the pool, she went with him, meek as a lamb, though she knew what it meant. Any inhibitions Lily might have had, long since numbed by beer and hot, fast kisses.

She could remember the silkiness of his hair brushing her collarbone as his mouth moved down her neck, to her chest, and the rustle of her shirt as he undid the buttons, sliding it down her arms. It was only when his hands where on her bra strap that Lily began to feel uneasy, but then his lips were on hers and it was all she could do to remain standing.

It was not how she had imagined her first time would be; and when it was over she had gotten up to leave, already feeling the shame of what she had done all over her body. But he hadn't let her go, instead pulling her into his arms on the dirty sofa where they had shared their moment and kissing her lips with the lightest caress. It was in that moment, when he hadn't just let her walk away, that Lily realised that she would do anything for Nathan Baker.

When they finally left the dark of the pool house it was late, very late, and most of the guests were sprawled on sofas or chairs, or even the floor. Lily had looked, in vain, for Frank, but then Nathan was kissing her goodbye and she forgot everything.

...

They had spent almost the entire Christmas holidays together. Being with Nathan made Lily feel so different, so alive. It was so easy to get lost in the crowd, especially in her family. Lily had always grown up in the shadow of Rose and her older brothers, but with Nathan she became a whole new person. Someone daring and unafraid, and as he drew her further and further into his world of parties and excitement and decadent pleasure, the world she'd always known - of playing chess with Hugo, or doing homework with Frank - seemed to fade more and more every day.

She knew that she ought to have tried harder, somehow making it work, but it was never that easy, as though that one night had changed everything when she'd chosen Nathan over her best friend. Soon, the mere thought of making things right seemed too difficult to even contemplate.

The night before they went back to school, they were lying on Nathan's room, when there was a crash from the next room and Lily flinched as, with perfect clarity, a string of profanities echoed through the wall, followed by a bellowed; "NATHAN!"

Beside her, he had frozen in place, fear flashing across his face so fast Lily almost missed it. And then he was walking to the door, warning her not to follow.

But Lily hadn't obeyed him that time, slipping off the bed, towards the door. That was the first time that she realised that something was wrong. Nathan's father, tall, far taller than Nathan, reaching down, and with a sharp, deft, practised motion, brought his open palm down on Nathan's face.

There comes a moment in every person's life where the world seems so quiet that your breathing seems loud, and every emotion can be read. I could see Nathan shaking, blood trickling down from his nose, and then the heavy footfall of his father and she jumped back, hiding behind the door.

When Nate re-entered his bedroom Lily was sat on the edge of his bed. She didn't cry at his damaged face, or the harsh words; instead just holding out her hand and pulling his head down onto her chest and she held him close, wishing there was some way to make it all go away.


	6. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

Rose

Rose and Scorpius' friendship had an unoriginal beginning. No excessively emotional scenes, nothing dramatic, nothing drastic and -_heaven forefend!-_ no grand gesture like knocking out mountain trolls. Rose had entered Hogwarts with something to prove, following in the wake of her parents, her older cousins, wanting, always, to stand out.

Rose was reckless, reckless enough to befriend the one person she was forbidden to associate with. Scorpius, to her, was simply a stepping stone into this reckless future. What she hadn't counted on was how well they suited. He was always ready to pull her back when she fell too fast. In her own way, she helped him too.

Helped him. Helped him in that moment when he smoked his way through a lung full of magic and was puking white. She walked him up and down and held his hand and kissed the black ring around his eye his grandfather had given him. Kissed him and held him and soothed him. It was the closest she came to telling him how much she cared.

For Scorpius, in his mind, that night was going to be the night he told her everything. Tell her how in the middle of the night when the insomnia had him in its grasp it was her face he saw, her wide laughing eyes. And then he'd heard them arguing and seen his father flinch, his father - a grown man - flinch before the elderly man as he raised his arm. And Scorpius had taken the hit. It was the first time, the last time, he had felt the searing pain rejection could bring, burning more strongly than his eye did.

His father had held him afterwards, held him close but the memory, like the purple ring around his swollen eye, didn't fade. Not that day, or the next. Nor did the shame that he had to face Rose, with her perfect family, with the mess that was his own blatantly obvious on his face. So instead of going to her house, he went to a party and took the roll of paper with its glowing end and let the smoke burn his lungs.

She found him there, hours later. He was rocking back and forth in a corner, his head in his hands. One boy, a complete stranger with a burning cigarette between his fingers had stepped on him earlier, cursing when he stumbled, dropping the cigarette onto Scorpius's shoulder. He found the circular hole next morning, right there, next to the red mark on his skin.

She had taken his hand and lead him outside and held him up when he emptied his stomach again and again. It was Rose who somehow managed to get him home, lying to his parents that he'd been hexed rather than ratting him out. Rose who'd stayed by his side, sleeping on top of the covers next to him as he lay passed out.

It was the first time they slept together. Not sex, but slept, in the purest sense of the word, next to each other. It was the first time, only time, she hadn't let go of his hand.

The next morning she didn't say anything. Silence had always been their way of understanding the mess they had made, of letting the other know that the past was past. But after that night something changed. It was like silence wasn't enough anymore.

A few weeks later they were back at school and went to Meagan's party and Rose lost her virginity to Brickers and found her own kiss-and-tell story splashed across every page of the gutter press. For the girl who had everything to prove, Rose seemed to have lost everything. Everything but him.

So maybe their friendship had an unoriginal beginning. But to Scorpius and, though she couldn't ever have admitted it, to Rose; the unoriginal beginning didn't matter, because it was the moment now, when they held each other up, that mattered most.

...

Lily

Time passed, for time must, and soon the grounds were covered in veneer of silver that hid the dark places and caught the reflections from the sunlight, sending them spinning and dancing across the windowpanes. The corridors seemed colder, the stone echoing their frosted breath as October became November and the skies became darker.

"Lily."

Karla couldn't remember when Lily had become so distant. She was sat a few seats down, Nathan's arm wrapped around her waist, picking at a few stray pieces of potato. She jumped when Karla said her name and turned her head. Karla personally found Lily annoying. She was so quiet and reserved, and so beautiful, that Karla had felt inferior from the first moment Nathan had pushed them together. And she was so thin.

Karla tried to think back to a time when she had enjoyed eating. She had been a fat child, pudgy with a round face and greasy, unhappy hair. Her mother had hated her. Hated her so much that Karla was passed to a nanny simply so her mother wouldn't have to look at her ugly child. When Karla was four, her mother had another little girl, a girl with the golden curls and cherub mouth of their mother.

Karla hated her sister. Hated her for growing from a beautiful baby to a beautiful child. Hated her for being _thin_.

When Karla was banished to Hogwarts she realised that her mother didn't love her. And by the time Karla was twelve she knew why. Her mother hated herself for the same reasons she hated herself.

Still, now as she watched Lily, Karla wished things had been different. She wished that she didn't care what her mother thought of her, wished that, just once, she could look at the potato Lily was picking at without that feeling, a mixture of bile and longing and disgust, rising up.

Being petty was ridiculous, Karla knew this. But it had been so tempting to take the little silver flask that belonged to Lily, that Lily took everywhere. She had laughed mockingly as Lily searched her belongings for it, fear and desperation etched into her striking features. It had been cruel certainly, especially when Jennifer told her that Nathan had given it to Lily. But Karla could only feel triumph when she saw how the purple shadows beneath Lily's eyes disfigured her face the next morning.

Karla supposed she ought to feel guilty for not liking Lily. After all, it was Lily's fault that Nathan loved her. That Rita loved her. That everyone loved her. But Karla was grown up now. She didn't need to be loved anymore. She was beautiful now, and that was all that really mattered.

...

Lily was sat in a corner of the library, staring down at the faint words of her textbook and wishing that Nathan was sat next to her. It was late, and Lily was tired, but there was no point trying to go to sleep. Respite eluded her, no matter how hard she tried.

Lily had never realised her dependence on the little metal flask until it had disappeared. It helped her sleep, helped her hide from the dreams that crippled her with fear, sweat pricking her skin. But it was only the loss. The guilt she felt for loosing Nathan's present struck her to her very core. She needed to tell him, to own up, but he would be angry, so angry. Lily loved Nathan, but he scared her too. The sheer unpredictability of his movements, the way he made her feel so ashamed.

Hidden as she was, in the deepest recess of the library, Lily hadn't expected anybody to find her. So when Frank settled into a seat next to her, her surprise was tinged with confusion.

"You look tired."

Lily wondered how she could make him go away. Their friendship was finished, had finished years ago. He wanted too much from her, so much that she couldn't give. He wanted her to give up Nathan, for it to go back to the time when it had just been them. But that could never happen. Lily wasn't strong enough, she could never be strong enough for that.

"Go away Frank."

"Lily-"

"Just go away. I can't talk to you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

To Lily's shame, tears were beginning to slide from the corner of her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. Even through everything, everything she had been through, she had never cried, but these tears were from exhaustion and, yes, she admitted it to herself, fear.

Lily wondered what it would be like not to feel so afraid. Afraid of her family, and what they would feel if she told them the truth. Afraid of Frank and the future he was tempting her with, a future of friendship. But most of all she was scared of losing Nathan, and with him, loosing herself.

So as Frank reached out to touch her, she slapped his hands away and ran. Ran to the only place she knew she was safe. She ran to Nathan, and the comfort he offered when he kissed her and held her. She ran to his bed, and the boy who had all the answers to the questions she didn't even know how to ask.


	7. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six_

_Rose_

Rose sometimes wondered where her life was going.

The years, beginning to blur together, dripping and draining into a fog of alcohol and failed opportunities, had passed. Looking back, Rose wondered if she'd made the right choice. With every mistake, every photograph in the press, she had retreated more and more into a facade, her armour.

She wondered what it was like to laugh anymore.

Not the high, crazed hysteria the bottom of the bottle brings, but really laugh - a belly laugh, one to leave you breathless with mirth, reeling in the sheer joy of being alive and being free.

Not since Brickers, she supposed.

In truth she remembered very little of that night. It was only afterwards, when she picked her way out of the room filled with broken shards of glass and unconscious bodies, her head feeling tight and woozy, that she thought she should check - _just to make sure _- and she tapped the glass Brickers had forced to her lips with her wand. The few, remaining drops of liquid had turned a deep, threatening red.

Rose shifted over in the bed, forcing her mind away from these thoughts. But they slipped through the chinks and cracks, feeding into her self-conscious and filling her head, just as ink expands in water, dying the clarity of the drops a bitter, staining blue. She suddenly wondered if she let herself go back, all the way back to that night, everything would change.

Maybe not. But she already begun and in the dark of the early morning it suddenly seemed so easy, simple even, to admit to herself what she had spent years running from. Years of alcohol and flinching away, not letting even the smallest ray of light touch her secret, her most shameful secret...

But what had it really given her, trying to run from the past? A boy she couldn't let herself love. A mother whose eyes filled with shame every time they met her own. Friends who used her name and left her unconscious in a corner for the world to stop and stare at.

Was it worth it, she wondered. Was it worth who she had become, to hide the shame of what she had been?

Deep down, Rose knew she hadn't done anything wrong. But now, after all this time, perhaps it was too late. Maybe she had lied so much that even the truth had abandoned her. Maybe they wouldn't believe her. Or worse, blamed her. Years of a face, one she barely recognised as her own, in newspapers and magazines told their own story.

She didn't know why she hadn't told. Maybe it was that nagging sense of self-doubt. What if she hadn't said no. What if she hadn't been so drunk. Maybe she ought to have known better than to drink...

Victoire had known a girl once, drunk, slow, and eventually unconscious. She told. _'Oh, she was asking for it,' _he'd said. And no proof. No proof. And it was all so long ago now...

It was in these moments when her hand usually strayed to the cold curves of the bottle on her bedside table, trying to drown out her guilt and shame and humiliation. But now she wondered if was enough, simply to forget for a few hours. All she had ever wanted was to forget. But the past claws its way out, follows you like a shadow. It's not so easy to hide.

So instead she ignored the dreamless sleep - so tempting, so hard to ignore - and slipped out of bed.

Scorpius was asleep when she slipped the key back under the mat and stole into his bedroom. Sliding under the covers, he shifted though, wrapping his arms around her as easily as if he had just been waiting for her to arrive. A single tear dripped from the end of her nose and, for the first time in so long, she let herself cry.

Just as sleep took her, she felt a ghost of a kiss brush her hair. She wondered if he had been asleep at all.

...

_Lily_

"Nathan?"

"Hmm."

"When was the Werewolf Code of Conduct developed?"

"1637."

Lily peered through the dusty glass of the window and watch the last blaze of sunlight turn the lake a deep, bloody red.

"Nathan?"

"Yes?"

"The goblin rebellion, the one that used the Three Broomsticks as headquarters, when was it?"

"1612."

The lake was filled with flashes of gold, melding with the red on the waves that attacked the shore in white horses and then retreated, leaving nothing but a black curl of damp sand behind.

"Nathan?"

"What?"

"I lost your flask."

The lake was almost pure black now, just the ripple of red brushing the tops of the waves, thrown into the air like a handful of rubies, or droplets of blood.

The silence seemed to freeze between them as Lily realised what she had done, what her traitorous mouth had done. She braced, hands reaching up to shield her face.

It was a reflex now.

...

Lily stood before the mirror and stared at her face. There were photographs of her, boxes of them, under her bed back at home, which proved she'd once been different. It was getting so hard to remember those days now. A fresh-faced, freckly child with hair the colour of carrots and a set of crooked teeth.

It was funny how magic mended the damage. Fixed her crooked teeth and splattered skin. Fixed the marks on her face and cleaned the blood from her clothes. Funny, how she never used magic to protect herself in the first place.

It was an epiphany, staring at her face in the mirror. An understanding. The reason they had clung together, so close. Because he was every bit as afraid of losing her - his one anchor, his safety net against the pain he had to burden, the abuse - for that was what it was - of his father, as she was of losing him.

And that thought, the they were the only two people in all this chaos, was comforting and profound and terrifying all at once.


End file.
